Observing the Outside World, Inspiring my Inner Thoughts (睹物內觀) is an exhibition that many viewers will probably relate to. Held at IT Park Gallery, it showcases Lin Chun-ju’s (林純如) whimsical, minimalist paintings — a squiggle at the bottom of a blank canvas, haphazard blotches of red ink. Though not as intricate or as visually appealing as some of her installations with flowers, Lin’s paintings speak to the viewer because they aptly demonstrate how human thought is illogical and incongruous. They suggest that we often cannot make sense of our actions and emotions.
■ IT Park Gallery (伊通公園), 2F-3F, 41 Yitong St, Taipei City (台北市伊通街41號2-3樓), tel: (02) 2507-7243. Open Tuesdays to Saturdays from 1pm to 10pm
■ Until March 25
Photo courtesy of Michael Ku Gallery
On display at Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts is Chinese-American artist Han Hsiang-ning’s (韓湘寧) photo-realistic paintings of cityscapes. Recalling is in some ways a retrospective of Han’s work over the past few decades. Born in China, trained in Taiwan before immigrating to New York City, viewers see how his style has evolved from abstract to pop art to the more realistic street scenes that he is most well-known for. Han makes ample use of cool, pastel hues and grays in his paintings of New York, which gives them a dismal yet dramatic feel, ingeniously highlighting a dream-despair binary that defines life in the Big Apple.
Also at Kuandu is Rhetoric of Shame (羞恥的修辭) a joint exhibition featuring the works of several artists revolving around the idea of shame. Lin Shu-kai (林書楷), who has made miniature models of cities in the past, injects a more personal angle this time by drawing inspiration from a recent family tragedy. The feeling the viewer gleans is neither sad nor shameful, though, but rather one of tenderness. Li Yi-fan (李亦凡) takes a different approach. Li’s previous work explored the violent side of nursery rhymes and children’s stories and he continues to do so in his latest work, which is as disturbing as it is titillating.
■ Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (關渡美術館), 1 Xueyuan Rd, Taipei City (台北市學園路1號), tel: (02) 2896-1000 X 2432. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am
Photo courtesy of TFAM
to 5pm
■ Both exhibitions are until April 16
If you happened to recently walk past the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, you may have seen an object that looks like an abandoned shipyard container covered with graffiti. In fact, it is an installation by Lu Jyun-han (盧俊翰). The Tempted Dream Walker (被誘惑的夢遊者) is an attempt to answer the question: What if dreams were our reality? Lu creates an alternate universe inside the container with his colorful shapes, squiggles and psychedelic patterns. The idea of the subconscious being a powerful driving force affecting our thinking and decisions is brilliantly fleshed out inside this claustrophobic space.
Photo courtesy of MOCA
■ Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (台北當代藝術館, MOCA, Taipei), 39 Changan W Rd, Taipei City (台北市長安西路39號), tel: (02) 2552-3720. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10am to 6pm
■ Until May 21
Chinese artist Wei Jia (韋嘉) continues to explore the good and bad in humanity with his apparition-like figures in mythical landscapes in his latest solo exhibition, Sudden Brilliance (小恍煌), which opens at Taipei’s Michael Ku Gallery tomorrow. Though some of his people are naked and others are fully clothed, Wei’s paintings nonetheless exude an Adam and Eve feel. Nature is presented in its purest form, glittering, luscious and inviting, but it’s the men and women that seem unsettling.
Photo courtesy of IT Park Gallery
■ Michael Ku Gallery (谷公館), 4F-2, 21, Dunhua S Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市敦化南路一段21號4樓之2), tel: (02) 2577-5601. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 7pm
■ Opens tomorrow. Until May 14
Photography buffs will enjoy Faint Light, Dark Shadows (微光闇影), the new photography exhibition opening at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum tomorrow, tracing the works of several Taiwanese photographers from the 1970s to today, including Chiu Kuo-chun (邱國峻), Pan Hsiao-hsia (潘小俠) and Shen Chao-liang (沈昭良). It ponders the notion that “everyone is a photographer,” challenging the idea that although everyone has a smartphone and can easily upload pictures to social media, that doesn’t mean that there is a deep connection between photographer and subject. Another important point that the exhibition makes is that cameras are merely machines that document and that it’s people who possess memories. Human memory is a powerful yet flawed force and exists as a stream of consciousness, making it far messier than photography.
■ Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 台北市立美術館), 181, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 3, Taipei (台北市中山北路三段181號), tel: (02) 2595-7656. Open Tuesdays to Sundays from 9:30am to 5:30pm and until 8:30pm on Saturdays
■ Opens tomorrow. Until June 18
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless